“True Blood” Recap (5.04): “We’ll Meet Again”

In my mind, True Bloodis an intricate Venn diagram of characters I care about – Pam, Tara, Jessica, Lafayette, Gran (rest in peace), and even simple Jason Stackhouse. The characters I don’t care about exist in the overlapping areas – Sookie, Alcide, Terry, Andy, Eric, Bill, Sam, and actually any other male-identified creature, human or otherwise.

Keeping that diagram in mind, I’m going to start with the most important parts of the episode and work outwards – beginning with our girl Pam, who is finally coming to terms with the burdens and blessings of motherhood. The vampire life cycle is continuing: Eric, as her maker, releases her, in order to protect his precious vamp DNA in case he dies. And now Pam herself is a maker and she must protect her dear progeny Tara, the sacred vessel of super special blood inherited from Godric. Vampire family trees are so post-gender.

Speaking of gender, Pam presents Tara with a delicious human woman and commands her to drink her blood. It’s all very sweet, since Pam finally cares about Tara’s well-being and is showing her love by offering her a woman. Pam even coaches Tara how to drink her blood without killing her, all the while gently stroking Tara’s hair. The woman is totally consenting, thank goddess; otherwise it would definitely seem like she was being trafficked between vampires as a symbol of kinship, thus continuing the human tradition of commodifying women. We can expect better than that from our favorite lady-loving vamps, right? Right?

Back on Tara’s human family tree, Lafayette is spiraling into the depths of his inner demonhood. He’s super pissed that Sookie told Alcide about killing Debbie and burying the body – he calls her the Angel of Death, which if you think about it, she kind of is! So obviously he’s so mad that later his face changes into something creepy with horns and a forked tongue (tell me you’ve never felt like making that face); his rage fills Sookie’s tiny yellow car to the point where it lifts off the ground. Later, while she’s driving it, the car seems to have a mind of its own, and she jumps out of it right before it hits a tree. As losing control of a car in this way is on my list of worst fears, this scene was particularly terrifying for me.

Since Sookie has already told Alcide about killing Debbie, she figures that she’ll probably be arrested soon. So she goes and tells Jason about it, asking him to arrest her in her typical high-drama fashion. Silly Sookie must have forgotten that the Stackhouse kids are above the law. To remind her of this fact of life, Jason tells her not to worry about it. Jessica was there too, so she helps Jason clean up the mess by glamouring Sheriff Andy into simply forgetting about the whole issue. Oh, also, Alcide tells Debbie’s parents that Debbie was killed by that werewolf packmaster that Alcide killed for Sam Merlotte, which also helps put this subplot to rest.

I guess a major theme of this episode is that people love doing nice things for Sookie but it doesn’t get them anything. Unless you’re Alcide, because then she’ll get drunk and make out with you despite your great difference in head size. That happened. Did anyone have any feelings about it? It’s not like there’s anyone else left for her to make out with anyway. Process of elimination, Sook.

Speaking of the other men she’s had, Bill and Eric are free from the Authority and on the hunt for Russell Edgington, which involves a lot of looking and not a lot of finding. It also involves a lot of fatherly processing, in which both come to the conclusion that their seed and thus their legacies are safe within the vampires they’ve birthed. Bill gives Jessica tender advice about the quality of her weed, and Eric and Pam have the aforementioned release of ties. So it’s okay to die now, you guys! We don’t need you. Seriously.

Members of the Authority are all enjoying watching people getting tortured on their silver MacBook Pros. Mine is running kind of slow right now, but these guys don’t seem to have any problem watching multiple videos at once. How? Meanwhile, after lots and lots of torture, Eric’s sister Nora reveals that she was co-conspiring with another member of the Authority. After looking through various computers, it’s determined that the rat is none other than the little boy vampire I was afraid of! I told you that ten-year-old boys are to be feared. The Guarding stakes him on the spot, so we can all sleep a little better tonight. Thanks!

Speaking of creatures who sleep at night, Terry and his army buddy are on their super secret mission, and we “finally” get to see Terry’s whole flashback about the shit they stirred up together in Iraq. Basically a bunch of racist douchebags in uniform got wasted and accidentally massacred what looks to be an entire village of innocent civilians. So I guess this is supposed to explain why all of their houses are burning down. Terry and his army buddy go to the house of someone who was in their unit and find his creepy basement full of horror. Oh and the guy who lives there shows up and points a gun at them. Does anyone really watch this show for the human-on-human plotlines? Yawn. Next!

Human land once again intersects with fairy land, as Andy and Jason find themselves in a delightful fairy club. The fairy club exists through a secret window in a field, and has fabulous go-go dancers and happy endings. It’s really not all that different from any old fairy club in Chelsea except this is also functions as a safe house from vampires. Jason learns that fun fact when he runs into his cousin, the fairy Hadley – if you recall, Hadley was lovers with the Queen before she met the true death, and we haven’t heard much from her since then. Maybe because she’s been hiding out in the fairy club! Hadley warns Jason that if fairies don’t stick together, the vampires will drain every last one of them. She hints that this is how his parents were killed. We’ve all been told that Mama and Papa Stackhouse died in a flood, so this is quite a twist.

Hadley also tells Jason that vampires will turn on Sookie, which seems to be true as Bill and Eric are at that very moment lurking outside her house, watching her make out with Alcide. They decide to force her to help them find Russell. I guess she’s still on their shit list for deciding to not make out with either of them anymore, and this is how they are handling their hurt feelings. So Hadley totally has a point here! But she wasn’t supposed to tell Jason about his parents, and so she scampers off – he tries to chase her, but then he and Andy are kicked out of the fairy club by some fairy bouncers and then zapped with their magic glowing palms.

If I had one wish for next week, it would be that someone in this show besides a Stackhouse gets to make out. As Pam said, without really any purpose except to tease all the queers watching, “Let bi girls be bi girls.” Yes, please, let them!